To Make a Book . . .
Let this serve as the first lesson in making a real book: your first audience will be ghosts.
🔥 HOW TO MAKE A BOOK BY YOURSELF (and Why It’s Better That Way) 🔥
with the hidden steps most forget
First, you conceive of the idea. No committee. No workshop. Just the gleam of something sacred catching fire inside your chest. In my case, I had years—years—of poetry, paintings, photography, and prose stored like relics in a hidden reliquary. None of it had ever seen the cold glass eye of the internet. I’d been hoarding my beauty like a dragon.
Then you begin the arrangement ritual. You don’t just compile—you compose. Think: symphony, not spreadsheet. For me, each chapter had a rhythm: painting first, then prose, then poems, and finally a song, then repeat—ritually and thematically chosen, emotionally keyed. The third codex bent the form a bit and used photography, poetry, and excerpts from public domain prose written by some of my dead lovers (aka favorite authors) instead. Flexing the pattern is part of the pleasure.
But before the layout, before the software—there’s the naming.
That’s right. The title.
You sit with your work and ask it to whisper its true name. Mine was SPIRAL OMNIBUS. That alone was a spell—naming the beast, branding it with myth. A title isn’t a label. It’s a summoning sigil. Choose carefully.
Once the sequence sings, you move to the Word Processor. Not glamorous, but necessary. This is where you see how long it actually is, and start to feel the immensity of what you’re building. Then, you pick a layout program. I chose Affinity Publisher—a one-time, reasonable cost (because I don’t like being financially milked) and solid reviews. Subscriptions can kiss my grimoire.
Next comes the part most mortals dread: learning the software. I didn’t take a course. I didn’t watch the chirpy YouTube girl with her ring light and “Hey guys!” voice. I’m stubborn. I winged it. Master pages are your friend, by the way. I’m sure I did everything the hard way—manually placing text boxes on every page—but it worked. And it was mine. No filter. No help. Just me and my Muse.
For the art, I had to take my paintings down from the wall and photograph them—again. Still haven’t nailed that part. But perfection is the enemy of ecstasy, and this whole project is soaked in sweat, ink, and the ritual dust of altars.
And here’s one nobody tells you: file management. You don’t know hell until you’re juggling 50 high-res images in various formats, Word documents, proof files, TOC exports, ebook previews, .kpf files, and 22+ PDFs all titled “FINAL_final_USETHISONE3.pdf.”
From the moment the first word hits the page, editing begins. Don’t think of it as a final step. It’s a spiraling echo that returns every time you think you’re done. You will still find errors after you hit publish. That’s self-publishing, darling. Pro tip #1: order a physical proof. You’ll see things you never caught on screen.
Beta readers? Nah. Just one flesh-and-blood friend (if you’re lucky) or a trusted Keeper in the shadows. But no consensus committees. No deadening of tone. You have to learn to hear your own cadence and know when it hums.
Then comes the copyrighting. Government forms, a $65 toll, (in my case) one email exchange, and about three months of waiting. But now it’s registered under my name—my mark, my magick. Legalized sorcery.
I chose KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) because Amazon, for all its faults, has tentacles everywhere. If you’re just starting out, global reach matters. I even designed my own cover. KDP’s interface is surprisingly tolerable—though I had to download Kindle Create for the eBook version, which looks like it hasn’t changed since Y2K. Pro tip #2: Choose reflowable for the Kindle version at the outset. Amazon will not let you change a Print Replica version to the much smoother reflowable after approval—not without using another ISBN. I had to learn that the hard way. Pure tedium. But again—it’s mine.
Let’s not forget the backend setup—setting up ISBNs (optional, but I did it), pricing tiers, formatting blurbs, choosing categories, uploading print covers vs. ebook covers, checking bleed margins, and making sure your margins don’t look drunk. These steps are dry but essential—they form the girdle beneath the glamour. Pro tip #3: Bowker has a great deal on ISBNs (International Book Seller Numbers), which I recommend. Amazon will provide free ISBNs, but then your work cannot be sold elsewhere. Plus, you get to choose your own publisher name (called an “Imprint”) on Bowker; I chose Dogbear Guild, after my cat, Maceo the Dogbear.
After the proof came in, I made tweaks. There are always tweaks. You will never feel “done.” But you cross the threshold anyway.
And here’s the part nobody warns you about: doing all this with no external validation. No hand-holding. No awards. No workshop applause. Just you, a deadline, and the silent pressure of the Gods watching. I gave myself due dates. I met them. And after each milestone, I lit candles, poured wine, sang to the sky. My book was birthed in ritual.
I started this project in June. The writing was already waiting. The rest was willpower, precision, and sovereignty.
And now? It’s real.
And no one can take it from me.
🌀🔥 SPIRAL OMNIBUS — A Love Letter from the Chrysalis 🔥🌀
SPIRAL OMNIBUS is not your average poetry book. In fact, calling it a "book" feels almost too flat. It's a relic. A ritual object. A coded transmission written in trance and grief, blood and glitter, silence and fire.
I had no training.
No MFA. No workshop. No mentor.
Only exile, the dragon I met inside it, and an indomitable will.
Every poem in this book was written under trance—real trance. I don’t mean the metaphorical kind. I mean blood-sealed, candle-lit, body-painted, bones-rattling-on-the-floor kind. The poems came through me, not from me. I didn’t plan them. I didn’t edit them into cleverness. They happened to me. That’s what makes them alive.
They are weird. And they are supposed to be. Hell, I’m strange AF.
These are ritual trance poems—not designed for polite readings in bourgeois bars, but for initiates who know how to listen sideways.
The paintings? Not polished, but honest. Every one of them came from an overwhelming feeling that couldn’t stay trapped in the body. I wasn’t trying to make “good art.” I was trying to stay alive. The brush was my wand. The paper: my altar.
The prose? A surreal, stitched coat of many colors.
Some of it is dream-fragments and journal shards, ripped from late-night visions or post-ritual reveries. Others are short essays on esoteric topics—the kind of ideas that shimmer just beneath the skin of the everyday world. You don’t have to be occult-minded to feel them. They’re there if you know how to see.
There’s even a photography section—shots I took in San Francisco during the early pandemic—before shit got real and tent-y. Everyone was inside. The streets were empty. That time, for all its eerie quiet, was a kind of grace for me. I walked The City like a ghost, and it gave me its bones.
This whole work—this Omnibus—is dear to my heart.
It’s not for everyone. But it wasn’t meant to be.
It was born from my chrysalis, built in silence, sealed in ritual, and given to the few who can feel the frequency.
And already, I’m building the next one.
I started writing Book Two while I was preparing this one for release. I work that way—multiple lives at once. The next book will be a bit less niche, a little more legible to the outside world. It’ll be a collection of essays—some of which will be pulled from this blog, but many that will only exist in the book.
Especially the esoteric ones.
I don’t post about those much here. And for good reason.
Some frequencies aren’t meant to be broadcast casually.
But the book... the book is a sigil. A doorway. A whisper into the velvet ear of the willing.
I’m aiming for early next year.
It’s already humming.
Builder is as builder does.
Majeye
This isn’t just a book. It’s a relic.
→ SPIRAL OMNIBUS is yours to hold.
Get it now on Amazon – Kindle, paperback, or hardcover.